For our February show at Tumalo Art Co. in Bend, Oregon all of the artists in the collective painted things they are passionate about. As an exercise, because I hadn’t painted much since finishing my latest very large painting, “Into the Mystic” for the show at Black Butte Ranch, I wanted to do something different, which for me is often a still life. One of the Tumalo Art Co. artists, Danae Bennett Miller, (who I am having a show with in April!) raises chickens with her son on their ranch. They bring eggs from their (very) free-range hens to our First Friday Gallery Walk openings every month which are eagerly snatched up. They have absolutely beautiful colors—delicate tans, browns and blues…sometimes with speckles. As I was getting ready to make our traditional Christmas breakfast dish I found I couldn’t crack these two eggs. So I put them in a little dish and placed them on the vintage tablecloth to take some photos. The resulting tiny still life presented the perfect challenge for painting something I’m passionate about. In this case—pattern and color…
